Memeorandum

July 27, 2008

Keep On Believing

Earnest libs get reassurance that there is no liberal media bias, with predictable but amusing results.

Per James Rainey, media columnist for the LA Times citing a recent Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University study, the media has not been in the tank for Obama during the general election campaign against McCain. The study is not currently available at the CMPA website, but the result is quite different from the pro-Obama tilt shown in the primaries.

Here is Rainey with his summary:

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University,
where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades,
found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican
John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and
anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when
network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the
statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less
dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative,
according to the Washington-based media center.

Conservatives have been snarling about the grotesque disparity revealed
by another study, the online Tyndall Report, which showed Obama
receiving more than twice as much network air time as McCain in the
last month and a half. Obama got 166 minutes of coverage in the seven
weeks after the end of the primary season, compared with 67 minutes for
McCain, according to longtime network-news observer Andrew Tyndall.

Well. The CMPA scores statements (i.e., words) as positive or negative; images don't count. So if you think that the endless coverage of Obama with US troops, generals, foreign leaders and adoring crowds were neutral, then you can take this result semi-seriously, although there is still the vast pre-ponderance of "neutral" air-time devoted to Obama.

Comments

Old Media's perception of reality is radically different than mine. I got in to an argument with a practicing journalist on a topic related to this, and his counter argument was that the current Obama mania is no different than the love affair Old Media had with former President Reagan back in 1980-1988, and that there was no crush on Clinton (who was apparently got ten times the vitriol from the press that Reagan did). That's not quite the same as my memory of those decades.

Benen did note that when on air news strayed into opinion it was negative for Obama. He's not quite so self contradictory as he seems, but he is still completely full of it.
=================================

He never would have been treated as a president-in-waiting by heads of state or network talking heads if all he offered were charisma, slick rhetoric and stunning visuals. What drew them instead was the raw power Mr. Obama has amassed: the power to start shaping events and the power to move markets, including TV ratings.

Don't forget the power to turn back the rising oceans!

You know, I just passed up one breakfast spot — here in Beverly Hills — because they had Chris Matthews — Chris Matthews! — effusing off the flat-screen TV on the wall. Now, I'm in a café that is mercifully free of television, awash in mellow music. There's no thrill-up-the-leg Matthewzing to get on my nerves as I try to inject the appropriate amount of caffeine into my veins.

But there is still Frank Rich. Oh! The Power! The Raw Power! Ah! Stunning! Slick! And oh-so-manly POWER!

I don't think libs and progressives even pretend anymore that the press is unbiased; they just revel in it. They consider you naive if you expect evenhandedness even on news, not just opinion, where the imbalance is not at all subtle. The journalists still pay mock respect to getting both sides of an issue out, but that's often all it is, something on the politically incorrect side is mockable.

Then again, where would internet conversations be without the MSM to get it wrong. We'd still be in the coffee shops.
===================================

Point one: I sent a couple of graphs of fawning Obama coverage from a nameless wireservice to a nameless executive of the nameless wireservice. The subject of my email said, "I think I'm going to hurl!"

That executive passed on my comment to editors noting that coverage should not join the mania.

Point two: A transcript of any NPR coverage of national and international news will find overwrought words every single day.

I suggest that, one, the methods of these political scientists will not stand up to scrutiny and, two, it's not worth the scrutiny.

Today is one of the biggest races in NASCAR, The Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Speedway. Between 400,000 and half a million in the stands, millions and millions watching on TV. Take a quick look at the race on ESPN and tell me how many of that sea of humanity do you think plan to vote for the Big O?

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.
28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

The data must have been corrupted by all those bullsh*t stories claiming Obama had changed his position on one issue or another. That lying liberal press is in the tank for McCain and Bushitler.

I don't think libs and progressives even pretend anymore that the press is unbiased; they just revel in it.

The real moonbats rant about how MSM is in the pocket of conservative interests. Apparently one or two articles a month badmouthing the Obamessiah makes for conservative bias.

OT...

Today I looked at the bottom of my water bottle, from which I have been drinking for the last 6 months, and discovered the dreaded number 7. Since I keep it in a neoprene sleeve, it went unnoticed.

No use crying over spilled genetic damage, but I was wondering what all of you JOMers think of stainless bottles. I have an aluminum backpacking bottle, but it is a dent magnet, and I'm not crazy about going to a different form of plastic (number 7 was safe until it wasn't).

Let's review the bidding, Soylent:
1. For good health you need to be hydrates.
2. The plastic water comes in is supposedly bad for the environment altho increasingly it is recycled into useful products.
3. The reusable Lexan bottles are reportedly harmful.
4. Many stainless bottles are lined with epoxy which is also bad for you.
Conclusion--you will die from dehydration or chemicals if you do not use the throw away bottles.

His whirlwind foreign tour that brought him to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, Britain, Iraq and Afghanistan, finally put to rest the question as to where those seven extra states were that he thought he had visited.

I'm going to find an aborigine and have him carve me one out of a rock. At this point it probably doesn't matter since my DNA has been scrambled up and all my little uber-Soylents are going to come out with one eye and gills.

Seriously, I'm probably going over to a stainless one if I can find a way to get the metallic taste out of it.

I guess I just haven't been looking. It's easy to see now that JimmyK has pointed them out.

Imagine electing a president who cares too much. Obviously, no one would want a president who mistakenly thought he had made a mistake, that would definitely be a negative.

All work and no play makes one dull, so working too hard is definitely a negative.
A voter would certainly not want a president that was too nice. That does it for me, with all that negative stuff hanging over his head I will not be voting for Obama.

Soylent--I use a teflon pan to make the morning omelet; I smoked for decades; I eat bacon and other processed meats..I'm probably not the best person to ask--But I will note that science is working itself over to my side:sat fats are okay; margarine is bad for you; teflon's okay unless you smoke it; chocolate is good for you and so is wine and the Atkins diet.

Soylent, what is more important is whether or not you will be carrying the bottle.

If you are, go for light weight plastic and take your chances on the chemicals.

After all, most of us are going to end up dead eventually and, listening to Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, it's how you live the life you have that matters... and you're already doing quite well on that score.

Let us not overlook the irony here...the very same edition of the LAT which featured Mr. Rainey's attempt to ignore the last several months of reality included editor's notes telling us that the Real Estate section (which first appeared in 1901) and the Opinion/Book Review sections would be folded into other sections of the paper (with Opinion to be included in the News section--like it wasn't there already). One reason revenue and subscribers have plummeted is the inclusion of such poorly reasoned and reported articles like Mr. Rainey's.

It would be interesting to see what the study was coding as negative nuggets of coverage on BWorldSaviorO. For example, suppose a mention that BWSO was modifying his positions to move to the center was coded as negative. That might have equal weight with a report on a McCain slip of the tongue. Yet, MSM might underreport the many slips of the tongue of BWSO. So, the coverage might seem to be equally negative, but would actually be favoring BWSO by underreporting his slips.

In addition, some of the examples of bias are hard to prove. For example, what if BWSO had challenged McCain to a series of town meeting style debates but McCain had dodged them. I suspect that the MSM would have been trumpeting McCain's avoiding debates, but this would be tough to prove. What we do know is that BWSO's dodging McCain has not earned him negative coverage with MSM.

Then again, how could we expect BWSO to debate his actual opponent (or visit wounded US soldiers) when he is spending his time in transformational world diplomacy.

"Well. The CMPA scores statements (i.e., words) as positive or negative; images don't count. So if you think that the endless coverage of Obama with US troops, generals, foreign leaders and adoring crowds were neutral, then you can take this result semi-seriously, although there is still the vast pre-ponderance of "neutral" air-time devoted to Obama."

I'd be happy if they'd just stop photographing Obama with various halos around his head.

And the unicorns. Stop including the unicorns. And rainbows. So no more halos, unicorns and rainbows.

"I believe for every drop of rain that falls
Obama grows
I believe that somewhere in the darkest night
Obama glows
I believe for everyone who goes astray, Barrack will come
To show the way
I believe, I believe".

Can't see what is wrong with something in gold plate
Napoleon's favorite.
You could always stand on your head and drink your own urine. No bottle required, and a refreshing face-wash if your aim is off. Have I spoiled anyone's dinner?

Todays LA Times had an Obama article on the front page, below the fold which continues on a full page inside.
McCain gets a small article on the following page along with this bias study.
The bias study article which claims no bias was longer than anything McCain had written about him in the Sunday Times.

While McCain and Bush have similar views on most social issues, including abortion, McCain's candidacy may mark a return to an era of blue-blooded Republicans less vocal about their religious beliefs. Barack Obama, by contrast, speaks comfortably and frequently about his faith.[emphasis added]

Here's a fine example of the type of task The One has in mind for the ObamaJugend. Get ready, Mom and Dad - O! has a place ready for you in the ANWR Protection Battalions. Year Zero is just around the corner and Junior needs a merit badge.

Rick:Here's a fine example of the type of task The One has in mind for the ObamaJugend.

Somewhat related, but without the full on global warming hysterics (just interpersonal ones). We're in a drought here, right? You can only water your lawn 3 times a week, and only before 10am and after 4pm.

There's a family who just had a sprinkler system installed. And apparently the people who installed it set the timer, but switched am and pm. So it would go off during the day.

And some anonymous neighbor called the neigborhood association. Who called the state.

The neighbors whose sprinkler was inadvertently going off during the day had to drive to Raleigh to appear before some water board commission hearing something or other to plead not to have to pay the several hundred dollar fine.

Really pisses me off. That whoever made that call wouldn't just pick up the phone or head over to the neighbors and discuss the matter like an adult.

How would one make such a determination? The exegesis of anything emanating from The One must be interpreted through use of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as digested by Schrödinger's cat. No binary result can be obtained through such interpretation.

The purpose of Life is to Experience The One - that's all the information anyone needs.

Winston follows the woman into her flat and tries to unblock the sink. This flat, like Winston’s own is dingy and miserable, clearly indicating the appalling living conditions under the Party’s regime. While in the Parson’s flat, Winston is horrified by the behavior of their two children. Both the boy and the girl have been indoctrinated by Party organizations like The Spies and the Youth League. They play with toy weapons of war and dance around Winston calling him “Eurasian”, traitor, “thoughtcriminal” etc. Winston reflects that within a few years they would not be playing, they would be holding real weapons instead of toys and would turn in their own parents to the thought police if they displayed any signs of unorthodoxy or nonconformity.

Winston follows the woman into her flat and tries to unblock the sink. This flat, like Winston’s own is dingy and miserable, clearly indicating the appalling living conditions under the Party’s regime. While in the Parson’s flat, Winston is horrified by the behavior of their two children. Both the boy and the girl have been indoctrinated by Party organizations like The Spies and the Youth League. They play with toy weapons of war and dance around Winston calling him “Eurasian”, traitor, “thoughtcriminal” etc. Winston reflects that within a few years they would not be playing, they would be holding real weapons instead of toys and would turn in their own parents to the thought police if they displayed any signs of unorthodoxy or nonconformity.

On what "Bearded Spock" planet did they conduct this survey. Where Michael Moore
is being tortured on a barge off Mackinac Island; Tim Robbins is tortured by ad hoc readings of his dialogue from "Bull Durham"
and "Fraternity Vacation" (I know this must
be against the Geneva Conventions)In the real world where being 'silenced' by the Bush Administration is typical of Joe Wilson's logorrhea about the devoted spouse Plame. When Fannie Mae's eventual collapse isn't illustrated by the see, here, & evil evil clique of Gorelick, Raines, & Johnson.
Where Tony Rezko's indictment, and his ties
to Obama, along with power players like Al Sammarai, (who broke out of an Iraqi prison,
yet lives confortably in the Chicago suburbs) Auchi, who's the Iraqi "Tom Hagen"
with the Baathists as the Corleones,managed the payoffs in foreign capitols, before and after the Gulf Wars. Has Wright's mix of blood libel and racial incitement ever been the cover of a major magazine; as opposed to what Obama believe, what does he have for breakfast, why is Hyde Park, the best
neighborhood on Earth, apparently. The fact
that his track record in the state
legislature is that of a cipher; that he basically sabotaged the candidacies of his lead Republican and Democratic rivals, winning the seat by default. That America's enemies, foreign and domestic, are unapolo-getically routing for him (From Hamas to Code Pink and the ELF, and probably the Black Stone Rangers, and other gangs)That the only concern about gas prices, which are silently grinding us down, along with
the Ethanol boondoggle, which burns our food for fuel, is that the price rose, a little too abruptly. His illiteracy and innumeracy, about basic economics, history,
political events, is frankly at the Cynthia
McKinney/Dennis Kucinich level. It's not surprising considering who his speech writers are; one, a former Speech writer for Kerrey, another a troubadour for the traveling sideshow that is the 9/11 commission; redolent of the kind of reductionism that ignored the surge, and condemns us, to 'triage on the homefront' after the next attempt. The last, a former editor for Ted Sorensen, and a fellow commentator on the Huffington Post.
If one were to attempt an analogy with what we're facing is a modern take on "Catiline",
the Roman nobleman, who first thought to enrage the masses as a way to seek power, than sought out insurrection, when his political campaigns were thwarted. I thought we were a least a generation way from this; like the Roman Social Wars, but I don't think so. The question is whether there will be Cicero to challenge him, and a Sullust to chronicle it. The events of the last week, when he 'turned his back' on the men and women of Landstuhl, to give his self congratulatory, condescending, speech that demanded nothing of the audience; much like the "We Are the World" spectacle that denied the reality of the Ethiopian 'derge's
enforced famine. Meanwhile it airbrushed the role of the 8th Air Force in breaking the siege of Berlin, or the Army's role in keeping Berlin, from another siege in '62, playing to the spirit of those who were wrong in the 80s, re the Pershings, valuing dubious findings about global warming, over a sincere acknowledgement of the specter of Arab terrorism and encroaching dhimmism, present in Europe at least since 1972; painting our counter terror efforts in the same light as the German onslaught 60 years ago. Ignoring how the flaws of an abrupt revamping of immigration policy; can have real consequences(the Hamburg cell) Verily, are we the only ones who are witness to the Emperor's New Clothes? That was another thing I realized, the minions of Lord Obama, don't understand that Gerald Baker's skit was satire; they see it as prophecy, and realistic aspiration.

...valuing dubious findings about global warming, over a sincere acknowledgement of the specter of Arab terrorism and encroaching dhimmism, present in Europe at least since 1972; painting our counter terror efforts in the same light as the German onslaught 60 years ago...

We recently invested in stainless bottles for the family. We were going on a road trip and it seemed like a fun thing to do. Great success, except I was having tooth trouble at the time which it seemed to exacerbate. I dunno, I'm with Clarice generally - the stuff they say is awful for you, probably won't be in five years. But what the hell - the stainless bottles are reusable and there isn't the worry about plastics. And even if it's dented, it's functional. What the hell, give it a shot.

Mr Ballard,
I think npower has just done a Ratner on its product.Gerald Ratner was the CEO of a large jewelry chain at a conference he publicly stated his product was "All crap",shares took a dive.
No family with kids is going to sign up to npower for their energy needs and the first brat to rat will lose its TV computer,cellphone, iPod and all electronic games.Going to bed in the dark and washing in cold water should re-educate the rest.

Today I am in India. Even with the local horrific Indian terror bombings the national Indian news media has seen fit to run a television news segment complete with video, on John Edwards, the girlfriend, the hiding in the bathroom to avoid reporters, the supposed love child, the cancer stricken wife, etc.

Switching then to BBC and CNN, I have agonizingly sat through an hour of each, and not a single mention of the Edwards affair at all, either in word or in the scrolling news lines at the bottom of the tube. The story is also absent from the CNN website I am able to access from Bombay.

All this is just to say that the 2 worst international news services on the planet, BBC and CNN, are continuing their practice of telling the world what they want it to know, and censoring stories that do not fit their propaganda templates.

There's a good new search engine, Cuil.com(pronounced Cool) by the gal who designed the Google search engine..Try it out. I did and I liked it.

TNR has a good article praising Lt Col Allen West for whom I'm trying to raise money but I can't access it online because their web page is hinky/Here's a sample the staff sent me:

"This year's surprise in Palm Beach County is that local Republican officials, some of whom are also presiding over more competitive races, believe their candidate is...the marquee Republican of the year--that he is not a symptom of what ails the national GOP but a possible cure. South Florida Republican leaders supporting West...see him not as a lost cause, but as the national party's Hail Mary pass. He's a prototype of conservative manliness and an obvious alternative to Barack Obama. An eloquent speaker, he gets standing ovations wherever he goes."

I own 6 polycarbonate (recylce #7) water bottles, which I've used for years, so this subject is of interest to me... in any event I read an article recently (I believe it was in Chemical and Engineering News) that the problem is of "most concern" when the bottle is heated therefore these bottles should not be used as baby bottles. They may not have come out and said it but my impression from this article was that if you only use these bottles for room temperature or cold water there isn't a problem.
If you are interested in the article - I may be able to dig it up from my pile of old magazines in the basement.

After going back and rereading C&EN I have to warn you to ignore my first note... This article doesn't blame heating baby bottles as being the problem. They indicate infants may be more susceptible to Bisphenol A but they didn't associate it with the fact that polycarbonate baby bottles may be placed in boiling water to heat the milk inside the bottles - so either: